Jupiters north pole storm - image

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As Spock would say, "fascinating".

The latest from the Juno space probe has shown a stunning picture of the north pole of Jupiter. The great red spot isn't the only massive storm on the planet. In fact there are others that are near as big. This picture is from the northern polar region, showing a storm the third largest anticyclonic storm on Jupiter.

The picture was taken on the 7th close flyby of Juno at eleven and a half thousand kilometres up. That's about 11 times from Sydney to Brisbane. In celestial terms that's extremely close.

This storm is a long-lived anticyclonic oval named North North Temperate Little Red Spot 1 (NN-LRS-1); it has been tracked at least since 1993, and may be older still. An anticyclone is a weather phenomenon where winds around the storm flow in the direction opposite to that of the flow around a region of low pressure. It is the third largest anticyclonic oval on the planet, typically around 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) long. The color varies between red and off-white (as it is now), but this JunoCam image shows that it still has a pale reddish core within the radius of maximum wind speeds. NASA